SINGLING THEM OUT

When Jacki Weaver was a single mum in the 1970s about 70 per cent of everything she earned as an actress went to pay for baby-sitting fees. There were no crèches, no single mother benefits, no tax breaks. And she bought op shop clothes.

In her autobiography – which comes out next year – I hope she tells the story of how she was once so poor she admits to stealing her neighbour’s milk.

I thought about her plight (and the plight of other single mothers back then) this week when I heard several stories that showed, for many women, things haven’t changed that much.

Sure, there are now single mother benefits and more generous dole payments and recently the Howard election year $3000 “have a baby” bonus. But there are still a heckuva lot of abandoned women doing it tough while trying to give their kids a decent life. Trying to keep them fed and clothed and in school for starters.

Two cases: I met a young mother whose husband went bankrupt in property development after they had become used to the BMW and the Lexus. And the penthouse apartment. Then the husband walked out leaving her with an 18-month-old baby and a four-year-old.

Case Two: The mother of a five-year-old abandoned by a de facto husband after a ten-year relationship and virtually told “you are on your own… get a job”.

How can they? To use the current buzzwords they are fulltime mothers “24/7” after suddenly losing emotional, physical and financial support. They love their precious kids but there are times when even the most loving mother needs a respite.

School holidays are sweet and sour. The time with the children is precious but it becomes a 24-hour a day marathon. There is no personal oasis of peace and tranquility for such women even for a couple of hours – unless there are understanding friends and relatives prepared to pitch in and “Pinch-hit”.

I raise the issue because women/mothers like these, who have been out of the workforce for some years, can develop an idyllic (almost irrational and deluded) idea of what they can do back in the workforce.

Forget the fact that technology has passed them by. One told me she hoped to go back to work as a personal assistant “say from 9 until 3”. Drop the daughter off at school, go to work, leave in time to pick up the child after school.

A trifle bluntly, I explained that business doesn’t work that way. A personal assistant may have to work until five or six or even later in a crisis.

That led to a discussion about job-sharing but I haven’t found that working too well in too many businesses either. Ideally, you either split the hours or split the days. The problem there is that a boss asks Jane if a project is under control and it is not because he actually asked Mary and the baton wasn’t passed during the shift changeover.

It is true that some progressive businesses now provide crèches for working mothers but echoing in my mind is the comment from a multi-millionaire boss when asked to include one who said: “I run a factory, not a bleeping nursery”. That’s why he is so rich.

Coincidentally a new book is out called What Jobs Pay 2004-2005 and author Rodney Stinson comes to the conclusion that women get less money than men, not because of the so-called glass ceiling, but because they work less hours.

That’s not putting down women. Many work less hours because of the things I have mentioned. They have awesome commitments as mother and minder and chief cook and bottle washer.

These are not women with partners who can share the load and the pressure and the hours and the responsibility. Many are deserted by men who head off with another skirt to start again.

It is true that the “Darwin Option” is finally being squeezed closed. That was when wages garnishees did not exist or were ignored and men avoided court-ordered maintenance payments by supposedly “heading for Darwin”.

But how do these emotionally bruised women find time or opportunity for another man – even if they want to?

I know of an attractive young mother who would see a new, lasting, relationship as about as likely as finding a nugget of gold in a hole in the ground in her backyard.

Most nights she, and her young daughter, are sharing a double bed by half past seven. Obviously there can’t (and shouldn’t) be suitors sleeping over there.

I don’t have the answers. I only have the questions.

But just maybe things are changing for the better in a more understanding and tolerant workforce.

I read in the finance pages the other day that a mobile phone company is turning things topsy-turvy by offering employees such things as child care subsidies of up to 50%, baby bonuses of $1000, paid leave for getting married and even a day off if you want to work for your favourite charity.

They are not my phone company so I can give them a plug. They are called Fone Zone. To the boss, Maxine Horne, I say that I salute you.

And if you want to employ a couple of intelligent, diligent young mums on flexi-time – have I got a couple of employees for you!

August 29, 2004

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2004